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Bringing Up A Moral Child

While most parents are naturally concerned about their children becoming successful adults, we are more concerned about our kids becoming kind, compassionate and helpful. Indeed, most social surveys across the world show that parents want their kids to be caring and kind over material achievement.

Apparently, like most parents, I was very concerned with my children’s moral development. I wanted them to be compassionate towards others, caring and kind. But how do we accomplish this “hard to measure” goal?

When my youngest daughter was in middle school, both my wife and I noticed that she had become very materialistic and selfish. After much debate and discussion, we decided to move from our comfortable suburban community to the city of Seattle, largely because we wanted her to have greater exposure to kids from different socio-economic backgrounds. We wanted her to understand that with privilege comes responsibility. We moved when she was in 8th grade. Everyone thought we were nuts. But we wanted her to experience the world differently. It was a risky experiment. But one we felt passionate about.

Adam Grant, professor of management and psychology at Wharton School, the author of “Give and Take: Why Helping others drives our success” (an interesting read) wrote an article in last Sunday’s New York Times (April 13, 2014) on the subject of raising moral children.

Dr. Grant notes that studies of identical twins that have been reared apart suggest that close to half of our likelihood of being kind and caring comes from our gene pool (nature). But that leaves a lot of room for nurture too. Some research suggests that praise, rather than rewards are more effective when it comes to moral improvement. Rewarding moral behavior may reinforce the need for a “carrot” in order to do the right thing. We want children to make good choices because they feel that it is the right thing to do, not because they will receive a reward.

But what kind of praise is helpful? Today, it is in vogue to praise specific behaviors in the hopes that kids will repeat the desired conduct. However, studies in child development show just the opposite. It’s more important to praise the child’s character than the specific positive behavior. When a youngster is told “you are a helpful person” rather than praising a helpful action, kids are more likely to be generous in the future. Believing that you are a good person generalizes into good behavior.

Other research suggests that when it comes to moral action, using nouns is more effective than using verbs. When kids are asked to be “a helper” rather than “to help,” they are more accommodating! Similarly kids who were told not to be “a cheater” were less likely to cheat than if they were asked not “to cheat”. There is something about self-image that motivates positive or negative action.

But the opposite is true when children err. When kids feel shame about a mistake, they feel that they are bad. When they feel guilt, they feel that something they did was wrong. Dr. Grant notes, “Shame is a negative judgment about the core self, which is devastating: Shame makes children feel small and worthless, and they respond by lashing out…When children feel guilt, they tend to experience remorse and regret, empathize with the person they have harmed, and aim to make it right”.

This makes sense to me. Feeling that you are a good, kind person creates a positive self-image that is actualized in deeds of loving kindness. When parents reinforce a child’s value as a human being, kids feel more worthwhile.

Some years after we moved to Seattle, and after my daughter went to college; she went to work in the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the United States. Today, she is nurse practitioner working in a community health center that serves the poor. She told us—“One of the best decisions you made in my life was to move to the city. I met kids from all different backgrounds, and I learned how important it was to make a contribution to the world”.

Comments

Submitted by Jenna Lisenby on Thu, 04/17/2014 - 10:53am

This resonates so true to my heart. When my daughter was born 10 years ago, I began researching how I could help her grow to be "successful" in navigating this crazy world and coming out with a spirit of compassion and empathy. I found the following book, "Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essential Virtues That Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing" (Michele Borba) and I continue to re-read every few years. This is a great book with many very concrete and practical ideas for how to teach kids values such as Self Control, Empathy, Respect and Kindness. The list of resources at the back of the book also offers many great suggestions of other books/movies for parents, kids, and teens to read/watch to learn about each specific value.
The big take-away (in a nutshell) is to really demonstrate the values you wish to see in your kids.......surprise! Volunteering together as a family has really been the instrumental and consistent approach we have taken to try to impart these values with our children. I hope that someday we hear from them that they found this to be helpful in their life.......time will tell =)